Just Between Friends

Junie Wade never had a real friend in all her 24 years on the planet. That is, unless you counted Sera.

Both, complete social outcasts in Charlemagne, New Mexico, they managed to find one another when they needed help. It wasn’t a normal friendship where you went and did stuff together. More like a 911 call with no questions asked.

And that is exactly why they’d be burying a body tonight after work.

Junie barely slowed down as she slung the chicken fried steak orders on the table for Sera and her cousins. “Here ya go. Coke refills coming up.”

Snazzy Pig was busy. Every table packed. Railroaders who just finished their shifts hunkered over the counter and ate the best burgers in Charlemagne. A couple of old farmers sat in the back booth, like they always did, keeping watch on the comings and goings of things.

Junie rounded the counter with a tray of fresh drinks for Sera and her cousins. As she placed a glass in front of each of them, she felt certain Alma Lee and Opal knew. The Miramontes cousins were their own special type of strange and if you told one something, the others were bound to hear it. The looks on the faces of the three cousins told her they knew enough.

“You girls gonna join us tonight?” Junie put it out there.

“We’ll be working on things remotely.” Alma Lee piped up in her cheery voice. Damn, if the hippie-chick witch was sunshine and rainbows even when you were getting rid of a dead man.

“Ah. Got it.” Junie figured the two witch cousins would be off in some dark room lighting candles and chanting spells to make sure nobody got caught, while she and Sera tossed Jeff Beckley out of a moving car on the other side of the state line.

There were probably half a dozen federal laws for transporting a dead body across a state line. But did they count if he was from Texas where you were taking him? And did they count if he was a miserable asshole?

Truly, death was too good for Jeff Beckley. His 70-year-old life wasn’t worth the trouble she and Sera were going through, let alone the possible jail time should they be caught. But Lucretia Beckley was worth it. The sweet old woman had put up with this miserable human longer than should be expected. One time she’d told Junie she had married Jeff when she was fifteen. Surely, she’d done enough time in hell with that man.

Junie had no one in the world who cared about her, except Lucretia Beckley. The woman loved her in a way Junie figured a grandma would love you. At night, Lucretia would come around to the trailer on their property where Junie lived, and do what she called a tuck in. She would ask all the questions Junie imagined mothers and grandmothers asked their kids. How was your day? Tell me what happened.

After a run-down of the day’s events, Lucretia might pull back a strand of Junie’s frizzy brown hair to get a better look at her face. Then she would squeeze her hand. The old woman’s boney fingers entertwined with her own chubby hand. While they couldn’t be more different, the care that emanated through Lucretia’s fingers made her feel safe for a brief second.

Junie had bounced around foster care in Charlemagne since she was four. Sometimes, if she tried, she could recall the face of her mother, but never her father. She heard his voice. Heard the screams of her mother as he beat the shit out of her. Those sounds were her only connection to her father. But as the years went on, it got harder to remember what her mother looked like much less what she sounded like, smelled like.

But Lucretia Beckley stood at five feet tall with boney arms and weathered skin from all the years of working in her garden. She smelled of Jergens lotion and whatever she had cooked Jeff for dinner. Lots of times she’d show up in the evenings with a plate wrapped up for Junie. She tried to hide her acts of kindness to Junie just in case Jeff saw and decided to show his ass over it. If he’d had enough to drink, it’d be all over.

So, there was nothing to do but shush Lucretia when she showed up at the trailer door late last night. The old woman made no sense, babbling on about what she’d done. She pulled at Junie’s hand, leading her across the property to her back door. They walked in and almost tripped over Jeff’s body. He was laid out on the old linoleum floor in the kitchen with blood oozing out of his head. Without a word, Lucretia picked up the cast iron skillet to show Junie. The weapon.

He was dead and he deserved it, of that everyone in town would agree. But Junie was less sure that the town would agree to let Lucretia go scot-free. Yes, everyone knew he was a bitter old drunk who took his frustrations of a disappointing life out on his wife. But this town rested on its appearance of good Christian values, so they’d make sure to punish her for being a bad wife and of course, murdering her husband. It would all be rolled up in some moral package. A lifetime of abuse at his hands would not matter one bit.

Junie took the frying pan out of Lucretia’s hands and guided the old woman into her living room. She fixed her a cup of tea. Then she called Sera.

“You sure nobody else knows?” Sera asked Junie after hearing the basics.

“Nah. It’s just the two of us here.”

“Can you drag him to your car or do you need my help?”

Junie looked down at Jeff’s body and did some mental math. He was a big man and now he’d literally be dead weight. That last part made her chuckle. “I dunno. He’s a big dude.”

“Never mind. Stash him somewhere and clean it up. We’ll go by tomorrow night and slide him in the back seat. That way we can just shove him out.”

Now, serving a second order of fries to the railroaders at the counter, Junie wondered who’d do the driving and who’d be stuck in the back seat with the body.

###

The old farmers slid out of their booth when Junie came around to close out her tickets for the evening shift. They paid up at the register, leaving her their usual tip. Not enough to retire on, but certainly enough to put gas in her car.

With her side work finished, she looked out the window facing the parking lot and spied Sera leaning against her vehicle. The girl cut a very different figure from anybody else living in Charlemagne. She was one of the Miramontes witches. While everybody knew about them, everyone was okay with most of them. All of them really, except for Sera. She was the scary one.

Sera saw things. When she was young, she would tell people what she saw and when it came true, they’d freak out. Junie might have been bullied in school, because she was chubby, poor and had no parents. But it was nothing compared to what Sera had gone through. But even as a little girl, she remembered Sera absolutely would not take the abuse. Because she stood up for herself, people got scared. She was a witch.

Tonight, the Scary Miramontes wore a baseball cap. Her black hair with the single sliver of white, was gathered into a low ponytail. Beautiful as she was, the girl did not exude an approachable vibe.

“You ready?” Junie walked toward the driver’s side and unlocked the car.

“I’m good. Let’s go do this.” Sera folded her body into the passenger side. “We doing rock paper scissors to see who sits in back with him?”

They grinned at one another as Junie pointed the car in the direction of Jeff Beckley’s home.

###

“The moon’s waning, almost dark tonight. That’s in our favor.” Sera walked alongside Junie as they made their way to the storm cellar.

Junie pulled back the big double doors and latched them. Even without a moon she could see the outline of Jeff Beckley’s body, slumped on the steps like a sack of potatoes.

“How’d you get him out here?” Sera looked from the kitchen porch to where they stood. She was a bit awestruck.

“Don’t even ask. He weighed a ton. Dragged his ass down those porch steps all the way over here. Thought I was gonna have a heart attack.”

“Okay then. Let’s do it.” Sera handed Junie a pair of gloves and side stepped around the body to get to the lower steps of the cellar. “You pull that end and I’ll lift this part.”

Rigor mortis had set in, making his stiff body easier to carry. Junie thought it was like moving a couch.

After a few stops and starts, they’d managed to shove the body into the back seat. Junie was thankful nobody else was around. The Beckley property was a mile off of CR 34 and the only people who came this way were lost. It took them thirty minutes just to get it all squared away.

Once Jeff’s body was safely in the back seat, the two of them leaned against the car for a breather, Sera taking a drink from her soda can. Junie massaged the temples of her head trying to calm her mind. She opened her eyes as a large barn owl landed silently on her old Toyota.

The bird rested like a hood ornament, his head swiveling to look at her and then Sera.

Ordinarily, one might get a little freaked out if a barn owl landed so close to you and made no move to leave. It’d be scary. But Junie was with Sera tonight, so nothing surprised her.

“You know him?” She looked over to Sera.

“Alma Lee sent him.” Sera answered casually. She took another sip of her soda and paused for a moment.

“Here’s the deal. I know Jeff Beckley was a huge asshole and he probably needed killing much sooner than last night. But even Jeff has a soul, ugly as it may be.” Sera nodded in the direction of the barn owl. “This guy? He’s carrying Jeff’s soul after we dump him.”

“Carrying it where?” Junie prepared for a fight. No way was she letting Jeff Beckley get to heaven.

Sera held up her hand. “Easy, now. I wasn’t initially in favor of this, but what Alma Lee and Opal say makes sense. Lucretia might have whacked him, but it’s not up to any of us to judge him.

“More importantly.” She held up her finger to make the point, “Do you want Jeff roaming this property for all eternity? Harassing you and Lucretia? Yeah? How ‘bout that?” Sera gave a small huff in an I-told-you-so manner.

“So are you saying, if this owl doesn’t take his soul, he gets stuck here? Like, right here?” Junie wanted clarification.

“Yup. Alma Lee and Opal did a spell today to check up on Jeff’s soul. If it was where it needed to go, then the owl wouldn’t have turned up. Now that I think about it, I better text her. Let her know.” Sera pulled out her phone from her jacket to text her cousin.

Junie put her head in her hands. “Ugh. Why do I deal with you people? Tell me that.”

“Because nobody else is gonna help you toss this son-of-a-bitch. Get in, loser. We’re driving to Cardonas.”

Junie drove the speed limit on I-75 heading to Cardonas. The small Texas town was ten miles from Charlemagne and took less time to get there than it did to get to the grocery store. She kept looking in her rear-view mirror to check on Sera, sitting with Jeff’s dead body.

The railroad tracks came into view, signaling the state line.

“Are we dumping him on the highway?” Junie looked in the rear-view mirror at Sera.

“No. Turn off at 3rd Street. It leads to a county road, not sure which one. But no lights out there.”

Junie nodded as the car bumped over the train tracks into Texas. She slowed the car to the residential speed limit, knowing the police officer lurked on the other side of the Dairy Queen. He loved giving tickets to folks from New Mexico. Made his day. She squeezed the steering wheel with both hands, palms sweaty.

Please don’t stop us, please don’t stop us. Funny, how you know when you’re breaking the law and a cop is around.

Junie eyed 3rd Street and switched on her right blinker. She eased the Toyota off the main road and on to the dimly lit side street.

“Keep going. When the road ends, turn left.” Sera instructed her from the backseat.

They crossed a few intersections with no one in sight. The lights flickered in the windows of the homes offering the only evidence someone might be around.

The car bumped along when Junie got to the end of the pavement and turned on to the dirt road. She saw the streetlights of the town behind her in the side mirror, and nothing but pitch black in front of her. She turned on her brights, hoping to get a better view as she drove the slow pace.

“How far, ya think?” She looked back at Sera.

“Anytime. Your call.” Sera pulled her gloves on. “We don’t have to do a slow drive for this. Just stop and we’ll dump him. Nobody’s around.”

The events of the last twenty-four hours flooded Junie’s mind. Poor Lucretia terrified to go to prison, and dead Jeff in the backseat. It was all a bit overwhelming, and she struggled to steady her hands as she pulled the car to the side of the road next to a corn field.

She’d barely stopped the car when Sera sprang into action. She jumped out of the back car door and ran around to the other side, opening it and starting to pull the body out. Junie struggled to get herself out of the car and help, her nerves finally catching up to her. She fumbled to put her gloves on.

“Not now, Junie. Hold it together. We’re almost there.” Sera gave her a look.

Junie jumped into the back seat where Sera had been sitting and pushed the body with all her strength. She heard a grunt from the ditch as the body dislodged from the car and almost onto Sera.

She stood at the edge of the ditch watching Sera roll Jeff all the way into it.

Sera climbed out of the ditch and the two of them stood staring down at the body. The silence of the night matched the darkness in its quiet way. If either one of them had liked Jeff Beckley even a little bit, this would have been the time for kind words, but none came.

Instead, Junie heard the low whoosh of wings. Sera turned to point, where Junie could barely make out the incoming bird. A single stroke gave the owl all the momentum it needed to glide effortlessly toward them. It raised its wings and changed its body position to stick the landing next to Jeff’s body. As the barn owl had done at the house, it looked at Junie and then swiveled its head to Sera.

The bird was there for the transition.

“We’ll let you take it from here.” Sera nodded to the bird and grabbed Junie’s shoulder, leading her back to the car.

Sera took the wheel for the drive home and Junie was glad to sit shotgun.

“Here.” Sera dug into the backpack she’d brought and produced a flask. “Drink this.”

“I hate liquor, you know that.” Junie held up a hand, but Sera pushed the flask in front of her.

“Liquor?” Sera laughed. “This isn’t alcohol. Alma Lee made it for us. It’ll help calm your nerves.”

Junie took the flask and unscrewed the cap. Alma Lee was the witch in the trio who worked with plants. Junie had never used any of her tinctures and such, but she’d heard around town that they yielded surprisingly accurate results. She reluctantly took a drink and almost immediately felt calmer.

She let out a deep breath and handed the flask to Sera for a drink. Tonight, she’d tossed a body with the help of a witch, watched a spirit guide take away a soul, and now she was drinking a potion. Life was a little weird right now.

She’d leave Sera at her place, go home tonight and practice the story with Lucretia. Jeff never came home. That would be the story and when the police found his body days later on the dirt road, they’d suspect foul play, but they’d never suspect Lucretia. She was satisfied with that.

###

Junie got up from the couch in Lucretia’s living room and walked Hub Ledbetter to the door. As Chief of Police, Hub made the drive out early in the evening to see Lucretia. Her husband’s body was found two days after she reported him missing.

“I’m so sorry I had to give her the sad news.” Hub spoke in a muffled voice.

Junie stared at the ground and nodded, pulling on her best sad face.

“But it’s a good thing you’re here with her. She’ll have someone to look after her and such.” Hub opened the screen door and the two of them stood on the porch. “She must be crazy with grief, wondering who took him from her.”

Junie looked up just in time to see a barn owl land on the wooden fence that lined the drive up to the house. Dusk made it difficult to see the creature in full detail, but she knew.

The barn owl swiveled his head and looked at her.